


The Empty Heart

by little_miss_shinigami (rosexwald)



Series: Once Upon a December [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosexwald/pseuds/little_miss_shinigami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative ending for my story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/592879">"Once Upon a December"</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Empty Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liz_thirdstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_thirdstar/gifts).



> This is dedicated to [Liz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_thirdstar) and was written for her very special wish :)

John came back home shaking, but not from cold. He was shaking from anger, and feeling powerless, and sadness, and grief. He slammed the door and went to the kitchen to pour himself some more wine, but instead he ended up with the whole bottle in his hand. By the time it was half empty John was crying. He looked around the living room and burst into sobbing. All those lights, and mistletoe, and presents wrapped in a colorful paper… it was Christmas again, time went so fast, and everything there looked exactly like it looked last year… how could world be shamelessly bedecked with lights and colors, like if nothing happened?! How could world just go on?! Well, John’s world definitely couldn’t. So, pushed by anger, he threw the wine bottle against the wall, and it shattered into pieces, and wine spattered on wallpaper.  
  
Sherlock Holmes was standing across the street, snow covered his head and shoulders, light of the streetlamps was glowing gold but snow resting on Sherlock’s dark hair and coat was sparkling silver. Hidden in a shadow, he was looking at the door of his former flat, his eyes narrowed because freezing wind was blowing into his face. He saw John coming back from Molly’s, even from a distance he could hear him slamming the front door. He waited longer moment, he wanted to be sure that John would not leave the flat again. This whole time he was looking up, at the windows of the apartment, at colorful lights hanging there, brightening up the frost pattern on the glass, the same view that few days ago gave John false hope for Sherlock to be back home. But he couldn’t see what was going on inside, not from where he was standing, so he haven’t seen John throwing a bottle against the wall.  
  
He got sure that John wasn’t going anywhere anymore and then he rushed down Baker Street, and entered the door of a house exactly vis a vis 221B. The house was empty. No one was living there, there was almost no furniture, and those few chairs and a lonely lamp that were there, were covered in white sheets to protect them from dust. Couple months after his “death” Sherlock found out that people, who has been living there, were moving out. He managed to get himself a fake ID, on a name of a former owner, and using it he changed a phone number, given in all the “House for sale” advertisements. That way, everyone who was interested in buying that house, was calling not the actual owners but Sherlock, and he could tell potential buyers that the house was already sold. That way he was keeping the house empty for months. He was trying to visit the empty house as often as he could, because that way he could observe John. He could be close to him without giving away his plan, without making it dangerous for him.  
  
When Sherlock was climbing up the stairs of the empty house John was sitting on a couch in 221B, with a glass piece in his hand. But Sherlock didn’t know that. Detective got upstairs and sat in a chair by the window, using binoculars he looked at the windows of 221B. He was doing it every time he was there. That was his way to spend time with John. Because John wasn’t the only one who was in a deep grief. At first Sherlock thought that what he did was the best solution, the best thing to do in given situation, that he could keep John safe and track down Moriarty’s web under cover, without giving his friends to a life threatening danger once again. But it took only couple of months for Sherlock to realize that what he did was actually killing John. Slowly, painfully, day by day, John looked older, smaller, paler. Sherlock understood that he made him suffer. He knew, of course, that it’s only a matter of time, that one day he would be back, and that, after all, it was a better solution than have John killed by a sniper, that day in front of St. Bart’s. But it was the worst thing in a world to watch John mourning, to see him dead man walking among living. And Sherlock understood something else, too. He understood that it was killing him as well. Days without John were empty, he missed him. And he himself was also mourning: their former life together, their friendship. He told him once that he was married to his work, but now he could see that what he had lost was so much more important. First time he was sitting in the empty house and looking through the windows at John, to the flat across the street, his heart was beating so fast, and he smiled involuntarily. Pleasant wave of bittersweet pain hit his stomach when he saw John for the first time after few months. But one second later he realized that John couldn’t feel such a relief, that for John mourning continued, that for John there was no hope, he didn’t know… that thought was unbearable. Sherlock couldn’t forgive himself, and it was illogical because he was doing it to save John’s life, but still, he couldn’t forgive himself for hurting John so much.

Sherlock put binoculars away and took his phone out from his pocket. He typed “Mantelpiece – SH” and sent it to John’s number. There was a present for him, hidden in a stocking, Sherlock put it there when John was out at Molly’s. He was so close to the end of his mission, there was only this Moran guy by now, Moriarty’s right hand, a sniper, and Sherlock was already tracing him, it was a matter of couple weeks, maybe a month, and it’d be over. So Sherlock decided it was safe to give John a hint that it was all a mystification. To give him a little relief, to give him something to live for, give him a little light of hope, something to hold on to just for a little longer, and then, soon, to be back home. Sherlock smiled for a thought. He looked through the binoculars once again, focusing his eyes on a fireplace. He wanted to see John’s face when he’d see a gift that was left for him, he wanted to see him smile, maybe for a first time for those past months, he wanted to see John’s expression when he’d - and Sherlock knew it’d be like this - feel this bittersweet pain in a stomach himself.   
  
But John didn’t walk to the fireplace. Sherlock started to be impatient, that was strange. Why wasn’t he reaching for his phone? Why wasn’t he walking to the fireplace? Sherlock tapped his fingers on a windowsill. And then he gasped out loud, as he looked at the other window and saw John on a couch, his eyes half closed, and a puddle of blood forming on a floor. Sherlock didn’t even take time to think, as pushed by a bouncing of his own heart madly hitting his ribcage, he jumped to his feet and ran downstairs, door slammed as he ran outside. A car almost hit him when he was running across the street, his feet sliding on a melted snow. Front door were closed, Sherlock cursed under his nose and checked his coat pockets, he used the picklock that he made to enter the empty house across the street, but he had a terrifying feeling that it took too long before he managed to get inside 221B. He ran upstairs, jumping two steps at a time, and burst into the room. The sight of John’s pale face, red stains of wine on a wallpaper and a huge, _oh my God, so huge_ , puddle of blood on a floor, paralyzed him for a second.  
  
"John… John!" – he shouted and dropped to his knees next to the couch, John’s blood sinking into his trousers, his knees sliding on it. He took John’s face into both of his shaking hands and tried to lift his head up, he pressed his neck with two fingers and for a moment his own heart almost stopped as he tried to feel John’s pulse. He felt it, John was still alive, but his pulse was so weak, interrupted – "John!" – he cried once again and opened one of doctor’s eyes with his fingers – "John, can you hear me?! Oh God, oh God…" - he was mumbling incoherently as he saw skin on John’s forearm cut open – "what have you done? What have you done?!" – he took off his scarf and pressed it onto John’s arm, his knuckles turned white when he tried desperately to stop the bleeding, pressing so hard he soon felt his fingers went numb. With his other hand he took out his phone and called for the ambulance.  
"Please come, come quickly" – his voice hoarse and shaky as he was shouting to the phone – "221B Baker Street, suicide attempt… he’s… he’s losing so much blood, please".  
"Sir, we’re sending an ambulance immediately, please stay on the line" – female’s voice answered him, but by the time she finished the sentence Sherlock already threw his phone away on a coffee table.  
"John!" – Sherlock was still pressing his scarf to John’s arm, trying to wrap it around to make sort of tourniquet – "John, please, please answer me!"  
John lift his eyelids heavily, a faint smile appeared on his lips.  
"Sherlock… I missed you so much" – he breathed quietly.  
"John, I am sorry, I am so sorry… please don’t leave me" – Sherlock put his hand on a cape of John’s neck and held his head steady to look into his eyes, not to let him to drift away again.  
"No…" - John’s voice was so quiet Sherlock had to hold his own breath to hear him – "no, I’m not going to leave you, now we’re together again… let’s go Sherlock… we can go… together."  
"John you don’t understand" – tears appeared in Sherlock’s icy eyes as he understood that it was his fault, that he made John follow him to the grave – "John, I am alive, I am here, for real…"  
"Yes, you are" – John was drifting away again – "yes, we’re together…"  
Sherlock’s voice, shouting his name, reached his ears like from a distance and mixed with an annoying noise of a siren. His vision went blurry again, he saw a pulsing blue light and then everything went dark.

***

He woke up feeling very strange. He could feel it even while still lying in bed. Something wasn’t right. His hands felt weak, his knees felt rigid, his throat was dry, and his head was so heavy. He forced himself to open his eyes, but he soon regretted it, as the room was too bright. When his eyes adjusted a bit, he looked around. It was a hospital room, white walls, white sheets, white light of lamps, and a scent of medications in the air. At first he felt angry, he looked at his arm, covered in bandages, rubber tubes hanging around, taped to his arm. He didn’t want to be saved, he couldn’t be saved, it was impossible. He was alone in the apartment, by the time Mrs. Hudson would come back he should’ve been be long dead, there was no way he could be saved. And yet he was lying in a hospital bed, so obviously, someone found him before Mrs. Hudson. He cursed that person in his mind. But then he saw a blue scarf, lying on a white, metal bedside table, stained with dried blood. It was _his_ scarf. John started to remember. He remembered seeing Sherlock playing violin, hearing that lovely melody as he was calmly falling asleep, his heart beating slower and slower. He remembered someone shouting, he remembered being happy, he remembered someone saying “sorry”, and “please”, and “John”, he remembered being calm and peaceful. And then he woke up here. Could it be... ?  
He caught something with a corner of his eye. He took his look away from the scarf and he saw Sherlock standing by the window of his hospital room.

There was so many things John hasn’t told him, so many things he was mumbling through tears at his grave, dying from the pain of realization when he thought that Sherlock would not ever hear them. But none of those things came to him then, he had black hole in his head, he was literally and utterly speechless. Was it a ghost standing in front of him? Or was it his mind fooling him? But the scarf… John involuntarily looked at the scarf again, he reached for it and brushed the fabric with his fingertips, lightly, as if he was afraid it’d disappear under his touch. But the scarf was there, and when John looked at Sherlock again he saw that the ghost didn’t disappear. It was him, standing there, looking at him, so close, but how, _how_ , was it even possible?!  
  
"Sher…" - John tried to speak but his throat was dry and clenched, he coughed.  
It was like Sherlock was just waiting for it, like for a permission for him to come closer. John closed his tired eyes just for a moment and when he opened them again Sherlock was sitting next to his bed, his hand placed on white sheets, long fingers shaking nervously as he wasn’t sure if he could touch this little, pale, fragile man that was lying in that bed. They were looking at each other in silence for what seemed like eternity, dark curly hair fell on Sherlock’s pale forehead, and his icy cold eyes were glassy but shining, and John felt that this sight is taking is breath away, as he thought he’d never see that again and yet it was real. But there was something more burning in his chest, and it was anger and such an incredible pain that he made scowling sound and shut his eyes closed because otherwise he’d explode.  
  
"What are you doing here?" – John asked with his eyes still closed, speaking every word slowly, with clenched teeth. But he didn’t wait for Sherlock to answer, he opened his eyes, looked at him, tears hanging from his eyelashes, and spoke again: "What is this? What. Is. THIS? You did this."  
"Yes, I… John, I found you, I called the ambulance, I…"  
"No, that was not a question Sher…" - John interrupted him, his name still couldn’t get through his throat – "I said: you did this. THIS" – John looked down and shook his bandaged arm - "I mean, you made me do this. I have no idea why and how, after you made me watch you jump, watch you falling and then mourn you, you’re now sitting here, in front of me… I have no idea what the hell is this, but I know one thing, I know that you made me believe that I’ve lost you forever and you MADE ME FOLLOW YOU!" – Sherlock was trying to say something but John didn’t let him speak – "I can’t hear anything from you, I just… I can’t, it’s too much, I don’t know if I’ve lost my mind or what, but the only thing I know is that whatever is going on, it’s your fault!"  
"John, I can explain, I will…"  
"Oh, can you? Well then, explain to me why you decided to take my heart and soul and make me a better man, make me alive, make me LOVE YOU, and then you shattered it into pieces, and burned it, and buried it with you in your grave?! It’s too much Sherlock, I died the day you jumped… you killed me."  
  
Sherlock’s eyes widened, and he had to fight with himself to not scream, as he just heard the worst things he thought about himself spoken by the most important person in his life. It was not a bittersweet pain of love that was burning in John’s stomach, it was not a smile on his face, and there was no light in his eyes, it was nothing like Sherlock dreamt it’d be, and now he understood how selfish it was for him to hope that John would just take him back like this. There was anger and tears, and Sherlock realized he’s not like some lost treasure that John will greet with joy as he founds it, he understood that while he was trying to save John’s life he happened to be the one who truly took it away. Moran may not have pulled the trigger that day, but it was like Sherlock did. And when his body hit the pavement, John’s life ended. It happened, no matter if it wasn’t true, John didn’t know that, for him that all happened for real, his pain was real, his grief was real, sleepless nights, limping, soundless crying under the shower, words spoken to the speechless tombstone, tearing his heart apart, it all happened for John, that was true, and it was Sherlock’s fault. He tried to take John’s hand but John took it away, their fingers only slightly brushed.  
"Leave" – said John as he looked back at the blue scarf on his bedside table.  
And so Sherlock did. The second door closed behind him John cried, and he felt cold, like if there was a wind blowing through his empty heart.

*** 

It was five days later when a nurse came into John’s room and smiled, as he finally wasn’t lying still and looking at the ceiling. This time he was looking through the window, at snowflakes dancing lazily in the air, and birds nestling together on a windowsill.  
"Mr. Watson..." – the nurse said and John looked at her, his eyes were clear what proved to her that he started to finally come out of this numbness he was in for the last days – "Mr. Watson, are you sure you don’t want to see any visitors?"  
"Yes, I’m sure" – John said quietly - "I don’t want anyone to see me now."  
"But… well, all right, I just want you to know that people are coming and asking about you every day… and that man… he’s sitting in a chair on a hallway… since you got here" – John rose his eyebrows so the nurse explained quickly – "It’s the man that… found you. He came here with the ambulance that brought you, and he insisted to stay here until you’d wake up. Since then he’s sitting in a hallway, all days, just here outside your room" – she pointed into a direction of the door –" maybe you should let him in, just for a moment" – her eyes were warm and calming, somehow John felt she was right – "he seems to care so much, otherwise he wouldn’t be here."  
  
John took a deep breath and nodded slightly, he was ashamed to admit it but he felt a relief when he found out Sherlock didn’t leave the hospital, didn’t leave him… that he stayed and waited, that he wasn’t going to disappear again, and, what most important, that he wasn’t just a product of his disturbed mind. John asked him to leave the other day, and Sherlock did, but he just sat outside the room and waited, John thought about how he was crying that night, and how the next day he woke up with a feeling that he wish he were dead, and how he was stroking the blue scarf when he couldn’t sleep, and somehow the fact that for this whole time Sherlock was just on the other side of the wall filled his stomach with a bittersweet pain.  
  
When Sherlock came into the room John couldn’t look up at him, when the detective sat next to his bed and whispered his name, John asked him quietly:  
"What are you doing here, Sherlock?"  
"I was trying to save you" – Sherlock said, and John looked at him immediately as he heard in his voice that he was barely stopping himself from crying. And then Sherlock told him everything, and it was the hardest thing he had ever have to say, but he told him everything, and John was listening, his eyes fixed on Sherlock, even though the detective was looking down, at his own fingers tangling with the sheets. By the time he finished it was already dark outside, and they were sitting together in the dark hospital room, and it was so quiet that walls were echoing Sherlock’s broken whisper.  
"I do not expect you to forgive me" – that was the last sentence Sherlock said before they both sank into long silence once again.  
John grabbed his hand, and they shivered as John tangled their fingers together. Sherlock covered their hands with his other palm and, still not being able to look at John, was looking down as his fingertips were brushing red stains on John’s bandages.  
"If I wouldn’t forgive you" – said John finally – "it would mean that I am going to lose you again. I am certain that I wouldn’t make through this once again."  
Sherlock finally looked up at him, their eyes met, their hands almost involuntarily squeezed tighter when they realized how long they were longing for that moment.  
"I was ready to follow you to the grave, so I am also ready to stay here, but with you. I didn’t want to die, Sherlock, I just wanted to be… with you."  
  
Sherlock didn’t dare to smile to that confession, he just leaned forward and their lips met in a kiss that turned out to be something they’ve been waiting for since forever, although it was not until that moment when they realized that. That first kiss lasted both forever and not long enough, and it was both sweet and gentle, and hasty and greedy, when their lips were bitten and their tongues were searching for more, and no one wanted to stop to catch a breath. And they were kissing like if there was no tomorrow, faster and deeper, like if they were afraid that it’d all turn out to be only a dream, that one has no courage to admit to in a daylight.

***

"I will never leave you again" – Sherlock whispered to John’s ear as they were lying together in John’s hospital bed, Sherlock snuggling to John from behind, his arms wrapped around him. John smiled, half asleep, warmth from Sherlock’s body, still dressed in his black coat, soothed him.  
It was midnight, December 31st, and fireworks exploded in the sky, bursting with all the colors, announcing the new year, and it was too loud for anyone else to hear that, but John and Sherlock began this new year with saying “I love you”.

THE END  
(for realz this time)


End file.
